ain't ever something better
by tombombadillo
Summary: How could he ever hope to do her justice? (Spoilers for Watershed/Character death)


**Ris and Becca asked me to fix the finale, which I did plan on doing, and I had written a fair bit of it. But then I had a crappy day, and I deleted everything that resembled getting better, and I made it worse.**

**I apologise, I will make it up to you.**

**Disclaimer: I got a phone call for a job interview. I was on the toilet at the time.**

* * *

He thinks he shouldn't miss her as much as he does. It's not like Kate has truly gone from his life, not liked she packed her bags and sold her apartment and quit her job and left. Except she did. She did, she left him and the boys and the precinct behind. And no matter how many Skype calls they have, the messages they send, no matter how many times he flies down to DC so he can spend a rare weekend off with her, it's not enough. It's never enough. He wants to be able to wake up in the middle of the night with the knowledge that she's there with him, every night, every morning, always. Now he just has an empty side of the bed and coffee for one.

He hates himself for hating her. Just a little bit. He loves her, he loves her so much, but he hates her. And no amount of mentally berating himself will change that. He'd always thought that after all these years that he'd be more important than her job. He liked to pretend, anyway. He thought maybe she'd grown as a person, that she'd accepted a life outside of murder and case solving and bullpens. But apparently not. Still second to the job. He's not sure why he expected any different. And yet he still carries on like it's okay.

Truth is, she's addictive. She always been, he's drawn to her like a magnet. And he can tell himself that he should end it, should just walk away and get on with his life, but every time she tells him she has a free couple of days he's packed a bag and he's on that plane before he can even think about it. She meets him at the airport, and she's still the same as ever. Sky high heels, and soft woollen jumpers, that grin that seems to make everything irrelevant. Hands on his neck, fingers tickling the soft hairs at his nape. She kisses him, soft and warm and so very _Kate_, whispers _I missed you_ against his mouth. There's a tiny part of him that says she doesn't. That if she missed him, she'd have never left in the first place.

They always act like they're going to talk when they're in the car. That they'll get home (home, it's not home. This isn't home) and she'll open up a bottle of wine and they'll talk. But they never do. By the time they get to her front door, it's too much. She's too much, but he needs more. He needs her taste and her scent and her bare skin on his, mouth open on a gasp when she falls apart. And they don't talk. In their usual way, they don't talk. Not when they should, and by the time they do, it's too late. Like trying to build a sandcastle even when the tide is coming in. And he should learn, she should learn, they should both know better.

She actually has a house. A house on a tree lined street, with an elderly neighbour on one side and a family next door. Sometimes, she says she babysits. She helps with homework and she bakes with them, and it's so utterly domestic. And that hurts, because he knows she wants that. She hasn't told him, he hasn't bought it up, but he can tell when she talks about these kids. And as much as he loves imagining her carrying their child, of a baby boy with brown hair and blue eyes and a ring on her finger, the idea terrifies him. He's been married before, and he's done a kid before, and Alexis is perfect, but he knows how much she hated not having a mother around. He wants to be Kate's one and done. He is Kate's one and done, that much is painfully obvious. And she can toss phrases around like third time lucky, but they don't know that. He can't be sure that he's not going to mess this up and then he'll have divorce number three under his belt. He's happy where they are. Were. They're so far from there right now it feels like they've never been there in the first place.

Sometimes, she introduces him to some of her new friends. He doesn't think much of them, he can't deny. They're plain and boring and they have no life. There's no spark. And he's terrified that Kate's going to turn into one of them. That what makes her is going to wiped out by dark suits and sunglasses. Though she seems to have forgone those, for the time being. Her wardrobe is still, essentially, the same. Maybe not as casual as the Twelfth, but she hasn't resorted to dark pant suits just yet. He sees Stack sometimes, and it takes all of his willpower to not go over to the man and punch him. This is all his fault. Except it's not. It's all them.

The weekends don't work sometimes. A last minute case. Book signing. Tours and parties and meetings take up their time. Mother has a play, Alexis wants a holiday, the Ryan's have a beautiful baby girl. Though, for that one, Kate took a week off and flew up to them. Which was nice, except… it wasn't. She was back in the city, where she was meant to be. And sometimes he'd forget that she was going to leave again in a few days. He'd convince himself that she was staying permanently. Except… she wasn't. He was going to have to put her on a plane, watch her leave without knowing when it was he'd see her again. He can live with going to DC, it wasn't his city, and he knows it. He doesn't recognise it. It's not _home_. He can leave again, he can go back to New York.

As time goes on, as the weekends get fewer and the calls are maybe a couple a month, he finds that maybe he doesn't miss her so much. There's photo's of them everywhere in the loft, and they used to make his chest hurt and his throat tight, his body aching for her. But now, when he sees the one where they're on top of the Empire State, he laughs because Kate had dropped her scarf and they had watched it flutter away in the autumn breeze. Or when he'd surprised kissed her at the top of the Lady Liberty, and some tourist had taken a picture of them. He'd received it an e-mail not long after, and it stood on his desk. A constant reminder of what they had. Now… now it's just a happy memory, the way she'd swayed slightly when he grabbed her before steadying herself against him. She'd smiled and laughed against his mouth, blushed and looked away when the guy had approached them. Adorable. She was adorable.

And then one day he realises he hasn't talked to her in at least two months. They'd flown by, and he'd barely noticed. Barely pined for her at all. He doesn't know what their relationship is right now. Or maybe it ended when she left and they've just been fooling themselves since. He should… they should, they should really talk. Rip the band aid off. No anaesthesia. And he does, he rings her. But each time it just keeps going before eventually going to her voice mail. And then it doesn't ring. It's just her voicemail. Like her phone's switched off. He doesn't leave a message.

He all but gives up on her.

* * *

More months pass, it's almost winter again. He thinks about how two years ago he was entertaining Kate (himself) with theories about Santa, revelling in the fact that she'd chosen Christmas dinner with him instead of her own traditions. Two years ago. It's both a lifetime ago, and it feels like it was just yesterday. He's just about to put the last decoration on the tree when there's a knock on the door. He gives it a second, hangs the bauble carefully and walks over to the door. He doesn't know what he expects. Doesn't know who he expects to be in the other side of the door, but it's not Kate. He's stopped expecting anything from her. And it's not her. It's Jim.

"She's dead, Rick."

He almost laughs. Almost laughs at how absurd it is. She's not. Kate's not dead, she can't be. They've just… they drifted. They've drifted and it's just easier to make a clean break. And he was… okay with that. He was. He'd _know_ if… if she was dead, he would know. Wouldn't he?

"She died protecting her partner."

He's still staring at Jim, still expecting him to laugh, or for Kate to appear around the door. Different, from all those months away, but still Kate. Or Esposito and Ryan laughing and clapping each other's backs. Something. Anything. Not the way Jim is staring back at him.

It dawns on him, slowly. The man's red eyes, the slight sway as he stands there. He's shaking. The man who fell into a deep dark pit of despair, who pulled himself back out for the sake of his only daughter, he's back there. And there's only one plausible reason why. Only one reason why Jim Beckett would go back to the whiskey bottle.

"No…" he shakes his head, takes a step back and tries to stop his legs from shaking. "Jim, no…"

"I'm sorry."

He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. He never thought… he never… he was supposed to _know_. Isn't that how it works? Beckett – Kate – she was his… soulmate. There was no other way to put it. He was made for her, and she was made for him. Even if they weren't together, even if they'd… grown apart. She was still… except now, now he thinks about it… they didn't grow apart, did they? No, you don't grow apart when someone dies.

She died. Kate died.

* * *

He spends the funeral in an anxiety fuelled panic. Kate's body is flown back to New York to be buried with her mother. Jim wanted him to give a speech, but he couldn't. He couldn't find the words. There are no words, no sentences or paragraphs or long winded speech that he could ever possible hope to write that would do the phenomenon that Kate Beckett was, justice. He could never hope to get everything that she was, everything that she symbolised into a two minute speech. He needed books. He needed novels and thousands upon thousands of words, and even then he'd have only scratched the surface. He wants to write paragraphs about how she looked in the morning, undisturbed by murder and cover-ups and dirty politicians, how her skin glowed with sunlight, how he could almost pretend he could see it rushing through her veins. He wants words on her skin, the soft give of it, so feminine in appearance but deceptively strong. The way her muscles move when she works him, over and over, when she bends and she breaks, everything straining towards him and away from him at the same time, a supernova. Her eyes, her mouth, the mole on her cheek. Her scars. The way she shrieks when he tickles the back of her left knee. The dint on the back of her elbow where she fell off a trampoline. The way she doesn't smell like cherries anymore, but like him. Her heart and her mind, her passion and her loyalty. She was maddening and frustrating and remarkable and challenging, and she loves so fiercely, so completely devoted to those she loves.

How could he ever hope to do her justice?


End file.
